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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 28, 2026

An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime

An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime

Published on: May 3, 2016

Infants' reasoning about others' false perceptions.

Hyun-joo Song¹, Renée Baillargeon

¹Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. hsong@yonsei.ac.kr

Developmental Psychology

|November 13, 2008

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Even young infants understand that others can be fooled by appearances. This study shows 14.5-month-olds anticipate an agent forming false perceptions based on misleading visual cues.

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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

Area of Science:

Cognitive Development
Developmental Psychology
Theory of Mind

Background:

Previous research indicates children under 3-4 years old lack understanding of deceptive appearances.
The capacity for understanding false perceptions is a key aspect of social cognition.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if 14.5-month-old infants demonstrate an understanding of false perceptions.
To explore the early development of reasoning about an agent's potentially incorrect beliefs.

Main Methods:

Utilized a violation-of-expectation paradigm with 14.5-month-old infants.
Infants observed an agent's preference for a doll over a skunk.
A subsequent event involved a misleading cue (blue hair tuft) predicting the agent's false perception.

Main Results:

Infants' expectations indicated they anticipated the agent would be misled by the blue hair tuft.
Results suggest infants predicted the agent would form a false perception about the hidden object.
This demonstrates an early understanding of how misleading appearances can deceive an agent.

Conclusions:

14.5-month-old infants show evidence of understanding that agents can hold false perceptions.
This finding pushes back the developmental timeline for reasoning about others' mental states.
Early developing abilities in social cognition and theory of mind are highlighted.